A new president of Energiya was elected, Vitali Aleksandrovich Lopota. The company also seems to be in financial trouble. [According to this post at FP Space, the “bankruptcy” statement was a slight mistranslation.] The Klipper spaceship won’t be displayed at the upcoming MAKS 2007 airshow. The deputy head of Roskosmos, Vitali Davidov, informed journalists on Tuesday that in the Federal space program of Russia, no flights of Russian cosmonauts to the Moon are planned until at least 2012.
Other news tidbits:
- “Oxygen Generating System activated onboard ISS”, NASASpaceflight.com, 12/7. The OGS in the Destiny module has been turned on, so it will be interesting to see how this performs over time! The cantankerous Elektron seems to have been behaving itself the last few months (at least, there have been no reports of any trouble).
- “The 1st Russian Space Tourist?”: NASASpaceflight.com forum thread about a rumor that a Russian tourist will be going up in spring 2008 (autumn in the Northern Hemisphere). Hope they are not an obnoxious oligarch or the equally obnoxious Sergei Polonskii.
- Clayton Anderson (EV1, EMU No.3008) and Fyodor Yurchikhin (EV2, EMU No. 3006) successfully completed their spacewalk on 23 July, taking 7h 41m (10:24-18:05 UTC). Some photos start from this page at the ISS-15 Gallery.
- An article by Asif Siddiqi: “Russia’s Long Love Affair with Space”, August 2007.
From Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №640:
20/07/2007/10:42 – Scientists will contact the ISS from the bottom of the ocean at the North Pole
The participants of the expedition of the Russian “Mir” deep-water manned devices – who, for the first time in history, will make a dive at a point of the North Pole – plan to communicate from the bottom of the Arctic ocean via TsUP (Moscow Mission Control) with the crew of the International Space Station. The special representative of the president of the Russian Federation – State Duma Vice-President Artur Tchilingarov – announced this in connection with the third International Polar Year.
According to Tchilingarov – who will head this expedition – the beginning of the immersing of the devices Mir-1 and Mir-2 in an area of the North Pole is planned for 29 July of this year.
The “Mir” submersibles appeared in the 1997 Titanic movie. A test dive was made on the 29th.
Progress M-61 is to launch on 2 August.
